Good luck getting Dick Czarneski to spill the beans on the recipes for his homemade soups.

His lips are sealed on the Loaded Potato Soup he makes every Sunday at Cz’s Bushville Lanes — a concoction so good people sometimes come in to get an ice cream pail to go.

His chicken booyah, made from a family recipe, is top secret, too. So is the Zesty Tomato, Beef Vegetable, Chicken Dumpling, Spicy Chili, White Chicken Chili, French Onion or any of the others that might be scrawled on the chalkboard at the country bowling alley, bar and all-around neighborhood meeting spot in Eaton he owns with his wife, Donna.

“Every soup has a recipe, and he doesn’t steer from it,” Donna said. “And he doesn’t give them out.”

You have a far better chance to get Donna to part with her recipe for the one thing Dick doesn’t whip up at Cz’s: the pudding shots.

While Dick is in the kitchen making specials such as smothered chicken, meatloaf or lasagna, Donna is out behind the bar that overlooks the eight lanes serving up her trademark shots. She’s come up with 30 or 40 flavors since a friend first gave her a recipe for a pistachio pudding one. Made with two kinds of alcohol, pudding and Cool Whip, she uses ice cream toppings and crushed candy to “pretty ’em up.” Salted Nut Roll, Butterfinger and the Naughty Girl Scout are customer favorites.

“It kind of tastes like the mint Girl Scout cookies. And well, it’s naughty, because it has alcohol,” she says of the latter, which is made with creme de menthe. “Whatever comes to my mind, I just make. Or customers say, ‘I haven’t had the Butterfinger one in a while or I haven’t had this one or that one,’ and so I’ll make them.”

The Czarneskis are all about taking requests and being good neighbors to the local folks who support the business they bought in 2005. Built in 1976 as Bushville Lanes, the couple added “Cz’s” as a nod to their last name and did a major remodel to put in a full kitchen and windows as well as outdoor volleyball courts, horseshoe pits, a tractor pull track and patio. They replaced the original hardwood lanes with synthetic ones last August.

Google the address for Cz’s, and Donna says it will give you a spot out in a field, so she always tells people it’s at the corner of County Roads P and JJ, about 8 miles east of Bellevue.

“People used to say, ‘You’re in the middle of nowhere,’ and I said, ‘No, I’m in the middle of everywhere.’ Because I am less than 10 miles from Bellevue, New Franken, Denmark, Luxemburg and Kewaunee. I’m less than 10 miles from every direction,” Donna said. “We’re kind of a meeting place for a lot of things.”

Donna Czarneski’s pudding shots are well-known to customers at Cz’s Bushville Lanes. She has come up with more than 30 kinds, including pistachio and Heath bar, both shown here, and one called Naughty Girl Scout.(Photo: Photo courtesy of Donna Czarneski)

‘Kind of like Cheers’

Sheepshead tournaments, bowling leagues, bachelorette parties, birthday parties, fundraisers, couples baby showers, wedding dinners, banquets, bowling outings with local FFA kids or school sports teams, the Denmark Fire Department’s annual two-day bowling tournament ... you name it, and Bushville Lanes has probably hosted it. Some events are as simple as a neighbor up the road calling ahead to reserve “the tall table” that seats 12 in the main bar; others large enough to require the separate hall within the building that can seat up to 90 people for dinner.

There are nights like a recent Saturday in which two bands played two separate parties at the same time. Blind Ambition set up on the lanes (on carpet) for the Sugarbush Trail Tramps snowmobile club’s fundraiser, while a polka band played a retirement/birthday bash on the other end.

“It was so crazy in here, you couldn’t move. There were cars parked everywhere,” Donna said. “It was awesome.”

Donna is the designated party planner, in charge of bookings, decorating and public relations. Her phone is a photo album of all the good times had, everything from Halloween and New Year’s Eve parties to wedding parties who drop in and want a photo taken on the lanes. Some even cleverly flipping the bowling shoes around backward to spell out the date of their wedding day.

Each summer, Cz’s takes three buses — and a polka band — down to Miller Park for a Milwaukee Brewers game. Once every year, there’s “a big ol’ tailgate party” on site where everyone brings their campers. When the Czarneskis decided to do a Jamaican getaway this winter, they took 57 people with them.

All that personal attention probably explains the collage of snapshots and thank you notes that dot the hallway, along with fliers advertising venison processing and firewood for sale.

“Kind of like Cheers. You know everybody, most of them by name or by face,” Donna said. “ ... You’ll come in for a drink or a plate of meatloaf and all of a sudden you catch up on what’s going on in the neighborhood.

“We’ve met so many people and made so many new friends, and then the old friends come, people we went to high school with, and that’s fun, too.”

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Customers order up the fish fry on a recent Friday at Cz’s Bushville Lanes. The bar and bowling alley in Eaton has loyal regulars from nearby New Franken, Denmark and Luxemburg. Co-owner Donna Czarneski says she frequently hears this from first-timers: “Well, we didn’t even realize you were out here.”
.(Photo: Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Fried bologna and word of mouth

It’s word of mouth that usually brings the new people out. They’re easily identifiable by the way they look around at everything and something they all tend to say: “Well, we didn’t even realize you were out here.”

“On a Friday night or on a random night when somebody comes in and they haven’t been here before, I’ll say, ‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ And they’ll go, ‘How did you know?’ Because I’m always here,” Donna said.

Dick’s cooking has a way of getting around. His daily lunch specials include meatloaf on Tuesdays, lasagna (or an Italian dish) on Wednesdays and baked chicken on Thursdays. Monday is chef’s choice, which could include his signature beef tips in gravy and mushrooms and served over mashed potatoes or, if area farmers request, pork spare rib made with his mother’s recipe for raw-potato dumplings and sauerkraut. He does liver and onions twice a year.

Donna faxes about 20 area farms, construction companies and other businesses with the week’s noon specials, and Dick makes sure those on the clock get in and out in a half-hour. Sometimes the lunch special disappears quickly.

“When it’s gone, it’s gone,” Donna said.

Dick, who has been cooking since he was a high school student flipping burgers at a place called Rudy’s off Bellevue Street in Green Bay, gets help in the kitchen for busy Friday night fish, which includes baked cod, perch and bluegill. Customers often wait with a bowl of free popcorn and an Old Fashioned made with Cz’s own pre-mix, a recipe from Dick’s uncle that dates to the old Charneski’s Diamond Inn in Green Bay.

Dick also makes a mean fried bologna sandwich with meat from nearby Konop Meats in Stangelville and uses another neighbor, Don’s Bakery in Luxemburg, for his buns. Pizza Logs, pepperoni pizza bites in a flaky egg roll wrap, were a find at a bowling seminar in Las Vegas. Cz’s also makes its own pizzas.

Dick, who grew up on a farm in Eaton, learned to cook from his mom.

“I cook also but not as good as he does,” said Donna, laughing. “As you can tell, I’m more of the chit-chatter.”

She grew up in Pine Grove in a family of 12, where working hard was part of life. The Czarneskis’ work ethics serve them well as they keep a business that’s part sports bar, part bowling alley, part banquet facility and part unofficial community center humming 365 days a year. They close only for a half day on Christmas Day.

It takes a crew of 40 to 50 workers and the help of family. Their three children pitch in on lane maintenance and graphics, and the oldest of their eight grandchildren helps out, too.

But it’s Dick and Donna who keep the party rolling at Cz’s Bushville Lanes.

“We’re a good team,” Donna said. “What one of us doesn’t think of, the other one does.”

kmeinert@pressgazettemedia.com and follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert

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Bowling shoes rent for a buck and a game of bowling costs $2 at Cz’s Bushville Lanes.(Photo: Jim Matthews/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

CZ’s BUSHVILLE LANES

» Phone/address: (920) 863-6231; 2280 S County Road P, Eaton

» Open bowling: Available daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and all day Saturday through Tuesday unless there’s a benefit or tournament. Cost is $2 a game and $1 for shoe rentals. Bowling leagues run September through April.

» Food: Served 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Daily specials are available while they last and sometimes run out quickly. Take-out available on all orders.

» Burger night: Third-pound burgers are $2 and French fries are $2 from 5 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays. Dine-in only.